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Lawmaker slammed for his jaw-dropping comment about women

Another Republican lawmaker is facing backlash for bombastic statements about women. This time it’s Wisconsin Republican state representative Rep. Roger Rivard, who told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that “some girls … they rape so easy.”

Rivard was contextualizing the phrase, which he had told the Chetek Alert newspaper in December after a high school student was charged with sexual assault for having sex with an underage girl.

The comment was part of a story that Rivard’s father told him. From the Journal Sentinel:

“He also told me one thing, 'If you do [have premarital sex], just remember, consensual sex can turn into rape in an awful hurry,' because all of a sudden a young lady gets pregnant and the parents are madder than a wet hen and she's not going to say, 'Oh, yeah, I was part of the program.' All that she has to say or the parents have to say is it was rape because she's underage. And he just said, 'Remember, Roger, if you go down that road, some girls,' he said, 'they rape so easy.'”

With those remarks, Rivard was trying to explain himself.

The statement drew fierce and immediate backlash, with two prominent Wisconsin lawmakers—GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker—condemning the remarks and ultimately withdrawing their prior support from Rivard.

Hours after the Journal Sentinel published the remarks on Wednesday, Rivard issued a statement, saying: “Rape is a horrible act of violence.”

In August, GOP congressman and Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin sparked outrage for saying that in cases of “legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”